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Saturday, 26 January 2013

It's simplicity itself, so to add a little constraint, we ask that the card stays in this orientation ie that the band remains in the horizontal plane, in the lower part of the card and that it takes up no more than 1/3rd of the height of the cardbase.

For my first card I cased a technique that LIMette Vicky Hayes uses a lot... I have been meaning to try it for a while, but these Stampin Up stamps are perfect for it. The ribbon is also from Stampin Up. I stamped the leaves across the card first of all and then added a few flowers over the top.

For my second card I have punch out lots of hearts (Stampin Up & Martha Stewart). I masked off the lines and filled in the area with the punched shapes. I simply added a Pink Petticoat sentiment to finish it off...

Chrissie

Here are a few Leaping Sheep from a stamp by Inca Stamps. The sheep are gently shaded and the grass coloured with Promarkers. The sentiment was computer generated using 2 Peas High Tide font.

This one has a section cut out and the gap filled with a piece of acetate. The flowers, from a Martha Stewart punch were added and embellished with gems in each flower centre.

The sentiment is from Paper Smooches mounted on a Dienamics tag and popped up on dimensional pads.

These dies come in a set of 4 which are all joined together. Instead of breaking them all apart I kept them in twos and used this method to position the die around the sentiment.

Cut a guide from scrap card and snip off half of the shape you don't wish to use!

Place the guide around the stamped sentiment, centralising it within the shape

Place the die into the guide so that it fits snugly and tape down the other die to prevent movement.(I use a tiny Post it note to do this)

Gently remove the guide before running the card and die through the die cutting machine.

The result is a perfectly centralised sentiment within the die-cut shape!

My Cuttlebug plate is scarred and very well used but still works beautifully!

We hope you enjoy this challenge.

We have a great celebration in the offing next week for our Second Birthday Celebrations, so be sure to join us!

Tuesday, 22 January 2013

We know that week 102 was a really hard challenge for many people but if you didn't have any exercise or sports based stash you came up trumps with some great (and very funny) sentiments!

So we thought we would give away a little spot prize to the one that made us chuckle the most... Jen has donated a couple of stamps and some Ribbon Girl goodies to a worthy winner...So without further ado......

Saturday, 19 January 2013

Our challenge last week resulted in a certain amount of head-scratching and rummaging amongst long forgotten stash, but some terrific cards emerged and we would like to thank you all for being so inventive.
There were also some really amusing ones and lots of us professed to exercising our chuckle muscles!

This week we have a theme for you to follow which is

FRIENDS

This could take the form of a friend related sentiment... activities which friends share, images of friends- animal or human or both!

This monochromatic card features an image from Rubber Stampede stamped in black Versafine ink with a sentiment made from Kaisercraft Grunge Font letters. The scrap of designer paper has been sitting in a drawer for years, so I'm not really sure of its origin except that it is a digi paper. The flowers are from cuttlebug alphabet set of dies.

This one is a freebie digi image from The Alley Way Stamps. I simply flipped the image for the second dog and coloured them both with Promarkers. The paper is from Cuddly Buddly and the sentiment from Kaisercraft. I've done some stitching on both of these cards but it's rather tricky to see it.
As ever there are a couple more examples on my personal blog. It would be great if you could pop by to see them!Jen

For my first card I have used a simple Pink Petticoat image with a perfect sentiment. It's simply coloured with pro-markers random stitched around the edge and mounted on a pink card base. It's finished off with a few pearls.

My second card is using an image from Tiddlyinks called "Best Friends" I've coloured in the image with pro-markers and then cut out. The embossing folder is from Cuttlebug and the sentiment a Kirsty Wiseman from PI.

We would like to give a big cheer to all those who were not scared away by last week's tricky challenge, let's hope this week's will be a little easier!
Please don't forget to try to visit some other participants in our challenge and leave them a friendly word... it means so much!
If you have bad weather where you are at the moment, do stay warm and safe!

Saturday, 12 January 2013

What a bumper week we had for our Colour Challenge, thanks everyone for your fabulous submissions!

So it's everybody's favourite this week.... One Layer Cards... and we have chosen a fab theme for you....

Sports or Exercise

We would like to see sports or exercise themed cards.. this could be an image or even a sentiment or sporting quote... I hope our creations inspire you and we can't wait to see what you come up with...

For my first card this week I used a digi image from Mo Manning Image and a swimming quote I found on the internet and manipulated them in word to line them up. Very simply by adding a text box I could move the text around until it was in the right place.... I then coloured in the image with my promarkers and lined the back of the inside of the card. I have the perfect recipient for this card too....

For my second card, I stamped an LOTV image into the centre of the kraft card blank and then coloured with my flexmarkers so it had a tone on tone effect. I then punched some holes into the front and threaded through twine from Ribbon Girl. The sentiment is LOTV and the tag from MFT die-namics.

Those who know me of old, know the thing I have for cute chickens. I guess that post-Christmas, we feel the need to get in shape again. I love these Penny Black girls and this young lady is just part of a much larger stamp.
To ensure I got no trace of ink from the unused part of the stamp I taped the part I didn't need before inking and then peeled off the tape before stamping.

Here you can see the entire stamp and to the right the stamp after taping and inking.
I Googled "exercise quotes" to find a suitable sentiment and really rather liked this one...'Of course I'm in shape... isn't round a shape?' There are some quite fun ones around! The font is KG True Colors

.

When I saw this image on Bugaboo Digi site, I laughed out loud. It really tickled me. I typed the sentiment myself in Problem Secretary font rather than use the one which came with the image, so that I could fit it around the latter, but the words are the same.

It's coloured with watercolour pencils and blended with a water brush. I think that this medium is better for one layer cards as there is no staining through the cardstock.

I have a few more examples on my personal blog and as ever would love you to visit there too!

It was fun making these...we hope you have some fun too!
For those people whose language is not English, we would be grateful for translations of your sentiments if possible... Google can't translate those!

Saturday, 5 January 2013

We would like to wish you all that you would wish for yourselves in 2013
We are delighted to haveWOW EMBOSSING POWDERS
as our sponsor once more for the month of January.
We are grateful for their support and have great pleasure in recommending the fabulous products available from their website

The beginning of a new year and the beginning of a new month means one thing at "Less is More" and that is a colour challenge and for this time we have chosen

BLACK and WHITE

with a touch or a splash, a hint or suggestion, a dab or a patch of

a colour of your choice!

The idea being that the black and white are predominant and the added colour is subtle.

For this one I cut the flower from the front of the card blank and then inserted the black and pink die-cuts into the gap, backing the inside with a second sheet of card.

The sentiment is from a Cuttlebug die and is surface mounted.

For really fiddly die-cuts like this one from Simon Says Stamp and Memory Box, I always add some double sided tape to the back of the card before cutting and so all I need to do to adhere it to any project once die-cut, is merely peel and stick.

The hint of colour on this one is incredibly subtle... so subtle in fact that you have to look hard to see it. It's simply the square red gem in the centre of the border embossing. I don't remember the make of the latter, it may be Sizzix, maybe someone can elucidate! The outer edges of the panel were scored on a scoring board.

The paper is Pink Petticoat harlequin and the sentiment a stamp from Magenta.

So, for my first card I have used one of my favourite layouts and simply added a layer embossed with a Sizzix embossing folder. I have added a couple of lavender gems as my hint of a colour and a sentiment from Pink Petticoat. I also stitched the edges of sentiment.

For my second card I layered 3 strips of washi tape onto the layer. A simple strip of black card was added and a die cut sentiment from Die-namics. I've then added my pop of colour using a stampin up sizzlit butterfly die

We do hope that you will join us for the first of our CAS challenges in 2013.
Here's to another year of sharing our creativity!